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Hockey

Maple Leafs fall in shootout to sharp Luongo, Panthers

Goaltender Roberto Luongo #1 of the Florida Panthers stops a shot by James van Riemsdyk #25 of the Toronto Maple Leafs during second period action at the BB&T Center on November 22, 2017 in Sunrise, Florida. (Photo by Joel Auerbach/Getty Images)

Leave it to the Maple Leafs’ hottest player to get them one point at the BB&T Center on Wednesday night.

Nazem Kadri recorded a point for the eighth consecutive game, setting a personal National Hockey League career high, when he scored the tying goal on Florida Panthers goaltender Roberto Luongo with just over six minutes to play in the third period.

Kadri’s goal on a great feed from Connor Brown tied the game 1-1, but the Leafs went on to lose 2-1 in a shootout, their first such loss of 2017-18.

Nick Bjugstad, the fourth Panthers shooter, scored the deciding goal when he deked to his forehand on Frederik Andersen.

Before the Kadri goal, the Leafs (14-8-1) had spurts of dominant hockey, but looked to be on their to way to being shut out for the first time in almost a year. The Leafs last were blanked on Nov. 30, 2016, at Calgary against the Flames.

Roberto Luongo was excellent in the Panthers net, making 43 saves to push his career record to 21-9-1 versus Toronto.

Andersen was equally as good for the Leafs, making 42 saves.

Kadri put his Leafs teammates in a tough spot when he took a retaliatory cross-checking minor with 22.2 seconds remaining in regulation while the Leafs were on a power play. Toronto managed to kill it off.

“I have not addressed it and obviously you can’t put yourself in front of the team,” Leafs coach Mike Babcock said. “I thought the cross-check in the back was awful (by Aaron Ekblad on Kadri before the penalty) but I also thought the haul-down of (Auston) Matthews when he was home-free (in overtime) was awful.

“I liked our second, I liked our third, I didn’t think our first was good enough. I thought we got competing and competed at a high level. Luongo was really sharp. We got a point.”

After the Kadri penalty in the final seconds of regulation, Morgan Rielly struck iron, something that happened earlier in the game as well.

In a building half-empty on the eve of U.S. Thanksgiving (attendance was listed generously as 15,256), Babcock started Matthews and Mitch Marner on a line together for the first time, hoping the two could help lead the Leafs to victory after the club lost to Arizona on Monday to end a string of six consecutive wins.

Once Babcock had finished his line juggling and was pushing to win in the third period, he had Matthews between Zach Hyman and Marner; Kadri centring Patrick Marleau and Brown; Tyler Bozak between James van Riemsdyk and William Nylander. Matt Martin, Nikita Soshnikov and Leo Komarov shared time on the bench for long stretches.

Matthews, Marner (playing in his 100th NHL game) and Hyman combined for 20 shot attempts. Matthews had eight shots on goal, tying his career high for one game.

Hyman went for concussion protocol when he hit his head on the ice in the third period, but the indication from Babcock was that Hyman was fine.

Bjugstad gave the Panthers a 1-0 lead at 15:16 of the second period.

The Matthews line often had to defend against the Aleksander Barkov trio for the Panthers (8-11-2).

“Good,” Babcock said of the Matthews-Marner combination. “The difference between (Marner) and Willie is Willie can shoot it, (Marner) is more of a passer.

“So when you get those pucks dead centre in the middle, you’re looking for someone to pass (it to), and I like it going under the bar. We’ll figure it out. They’re good hockey players. We’ll figure out what works here over time.”

Babcock said he was not sure how the lines would look when the Leafs play in Carolina against the Hurricanes on Friday night. That the Leafs need more from Nylander is no secret, as he has one goal and four assists in his past 15 games.

“He’s a good player to play with, but so are a lot of guys on this team,” Marner said of Matthews. “We didn’t come out with the result we wanted so it’s time to focus on Carolina.”

CAN’T WIN ’EM ALL

SUNRISE, Fla. — Frederik Andersen isn’t going to get all the luck.

The Maple Leafs goalie allowed just one goal through 65 minutes against the Florida Panthers on Wednesday night, and it came when Nick Bjugstad scored from behind the goal line in the second period.

The puck appeared to bounce off defenceman Connor Carrick before deflecting off Andersen and into the net.

“It trickled through me,” Andersen said. “It’s a tough bounce, one of those situations where you’ve got to expect the unexpected.

“They came and shot a lot of pucks at the net and we knew they were going to do that. We got better as the game went on, but we didn’t get rewarded late.”

Andersen’s 42 saves equalled the most he has made in one game this season, as he also made 42 stops when the Leafs beat the New Jersey Devils 1-0 on Nov. 16.